David says hello. David says I miss you, I love you, how are you? Are you dating? How many cute girls have you kissed? David says tell me all about it. David says you ought to live each day like a cigarette. He adds, “be thankful for the next one, because that might be all you get.” I can’t say he’s wrong. The trouble with that is David spends too much time with misery. David says he’s an awful, rotten son-of-a-bitch. David is lying. His heart is bleeding on the floor and on his sleeves and on his notebooks and on his guitar. David’s heart is always bleeding. David says he remembers a time when his face was bleeding. David’s just a little boy sitting on the steps where he’s just smashed his little face. David’s face is bleeding and he’s crying. David says he isn’t crying because it hurts, but because he can’t understand what made him so unloveable. David cries because no one is home to wipe the blood from his face or the tears from his eyes or the snot from his nose. David says he’s dancing with the devil tonight, Friday night and then again on Tuesday night, singing with him too. David says the devil makes him quit bleeding. David says the devil makes his throat burn. It burns like his daddy’s cup. David says he likes the way it feels. David says things he doesn’t mean among the company of the devil. David says it’s a small enough price to pay for feeling fine. David says the man who kills the landlord, but spares the broker is nothing but a fool. David says that’s because they are the same. David says Hellraiser is the greatest movie of all time, maybe. He thinks the things he does are like Uncle Frank or Julia. David is lying. David is a pinhead. David is a chatterbox. David is a Cenobite: a little boy with a bloody face inside a monster’s clothes. David says pain is the kind of thing that never quits. David says most of the time he thinks he’s dying on the inside. David says I gotta let go, but David's hanging on for dear life. David says you need to think of Sisyphus with a happy face. David didn’t say that first, but I think he says it best. I think it’s easier to believe that a person perpetually suffering has joy in their heart because what is inside of them is whatever you believe it is, but a person smiles because they’re happy or at best they want you to believe it and that’s harder to see. David says you don’t have to love someone to fuck them. David says this but David loves hard and reckless. David says he likes kisses and snuggles and making chicken soup, but there’s just some animal thing to him. David says his art is not art. David is lying. He is the second most successful artist I can say I know looks like in their underwear. David says you gotta cook a red sauce all damn day. David says if you don’t you’re fucking up. David says he likes my cooking even though we don’t feel the same about red sauce or spaghetti for that matter. David says all fancy restaurants are called Dorsea, like from American Psycho, that place where no one can get reservations. We laugh about it, but still eat at those places anyway. David says you wanna go to Dorsea with the sashimi and quail eggs? David says you wanna go to Dorsea with the cured meats? David says remember Dorsea with the mediocre barbecued meats that used to be the microwave powered vegan place? David says that was whack. David says he’s gonna call me back but I don’t really ever expect him to, not while I’m awake at least. David says a good story is timeless, by timeless he means Victorian, I think. This story is not that. David says a story should be without things like text messages or emails. David says that’s because these things are bound to die, eventually. David is an idealist. David says what does this mean? David says why won't this work? David says what's metadata? David says you just made that up. David says I'm crazy. David says I'm out of my fucking mind. David says he loves me nonetheless. David says one thing and then another and then another. David says things like I say things sometimes—birdbrained in leftfield. Our conversations are long and tread around the shallow parts and plunge deep into the thick of it, like a knife in a belly. Like idiot little boys who know more than they should, giggling about dicks, crying over spilled milk, played devil’s advocate for moral imperatives and objectivity and suicide. David says things unlike the way I say things other times—calculated and precise. And I tell David that I don’t know what he’s talking about, sometimes just for fun to make him angry, but other times because my brain doesn’t work that way. David says a lot of things. David says I love you. David says kisses. David says goodbye.